(no subject)

Ah, the landscapes of the mind. In a dream in which I was hunting an alien disguised as the school slut, my investigations were interfered with... I got up on a platform and invited the entire graduating class to "suck my seven-point-five-inch dick" before leading them in a rousing arrangement of "Die, Die, Die Die Die." The sort of thing I should have done years ago, really.

responding to my mother

I'm familiar with Wal-Mart, but I don't shop there. I dislike the place. I'll try to be brief. Wal-Mart's business model involves coming into a town, undercutting everybody else because of their ability to take a short-term loss, and driving all or most of their local competitors out of business. (This is what Toys R Us did to local toy stores, only Wal-Mart does it to everyone.) The reason their stuff is so cheap is because they force their suppliers to meet ever-dropping price points, and in practice this means that American manufacturing jobs have all been offshored to China or wherever they can find the most repressed, underpaid workers. Wal-Mart is also rabidly anti-union, unsurprisingly, and heavy-handed when dealing with criticism. Offshoring of their manufacturing capacity also means that billions of dollars of investment funds are also going overseas. Furthermore, these practices affect the economy generally, not simply because Wal-Mart is the largest retail outlet in the world and because they're responsible for something like 40-65% of foreign manufacturing imports, but because their competitors have to emulate Wal-Mart's practices just to survive. The long-term result has been to destroy the manufacturing sector in this country and essentially hollow out the middle class, so what you have are low-paying service jobs and high-paying administrative and technical positions, but nothing in between. Wal-Mart isn't the only culprit, but it's almost certainly the largest.

A friend of mine suggested this link: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/ I've watched the actual program, but I was familiar with most of its content already.

I don't expect that you'll change your shopping habits, because as you say, they are cheap, and to some people that's all that counts. But I thought you should know why I don't set foot in the place. If you were asking because you were thinking of sending a Wal-Mart gift card, please don't. Instead, why not send me a nice gift card for the Swiss Colony? Or maybe Hot Topic... I can never have enough PVC clothing.

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Bet you $10 all she really talks about are those awful goth sluts on the Hot Topic website.

(no subject)

Today I spent an hour or so biking back and forth, carting away all the deposit bottles in my apartment and the trunk of my car. They've been building up for the last year. When the receipts were added up, I learned that last year I drank approximately

350 liters

of soda. So I should be dead soon! That doesn't include what I drank while I was out at restaurants or at other people's homes. Nor does it take into account incidents where I decided a bottle of soda was a terrible disaster and poured most of it out. Note that I consider myself a moderate soda drinker; I water down my drinks with lots of ice.

I gave the money from the bottles to the homeless guy who lives in the parking lot of the place where I shop. I was going to do it, and then I wondered if I was just doing it so I could mention it on my LJ and look like some kind of a saint. Then I decided I was going to be selfish and go get myself a pizza, and just not mention what I did with the money. But while I was waiting for the light to change, I just kind of felt compelled to turn around and go back. I'm a moron. He seems like a nice enough guy... maybe I'll go back sometime and ask him how he ended up living in a for Christ's sake parking lot.

Unrelated note: catching your tit on the strap of your loaded backpack is pretty uncomfortable, yet also strangely gratifying. Even if it's not as gratifying as balancing said backpack on the shelf of your ass.